


You're no more a king (cause I was your crown)

by Sylvalum



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Never Met, Angst, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multi, how can i take the Torna gang and make everything w o r s e
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 16:10:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18525010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvalum/pseuds/Sylvalum
Summary: Lora ducks in through the doorway-And Jin grabs the book.And shoves it even deeper into the shadows, so that nobody will find it again. His past self’s words are not for him, of that he is certain.





	You're no more a king (cause I was your crown)

**Author's Note:**

> *slamming pots and pans together* welcome to s u f f e r i n g  
> -anyway title from "walking out" by srbuk

 

In the old shack, the dusty little cottage they say belonged to him, he finds a book. He’s already touching it, fingers resting lightly on the cover, already debating quietly with himself whether to open it or not (what good could the past possibly do now? The past didn’t include Lora) when his Driver ducks in through the doorway-

And Jin grabs the book.

And shoves it deeper into the shadows, so that nobody will find it again. His past self’s words are not for him, and certainly not for a Driver his past self never knew. _Some_ privacy he’ll give to his past, dead self.

….And then he’s swept up in the whirlwind of Lora again, and it’s easy to let the book slip from his mind altogether.

 

 

 

Lora didn’t falter in the face of Malos, didn’t stop even as Torna sank to its grave, and Jin started to picture a future for them. Maybe they’d go to Gormott, start a little farm, and grow vegetables and herbs. Haze wold like that, Jin thought. They could home-school Mikhail, and maybe Lora could help out as hired security for the next settlers that would come to rebuild Torigoth.

…But it was never meant to be.

As they stagger out of the line of fire, stumble into the cave, Jin knows he’s going to die.

 _Lora is going to die_. He feels it as clearly as if it’s his own blood pouring out, even though he has no blood, and he has no heart, only terror, squeezing clawing _fear_ in his chest. That dagger of pure dread twisting in his ribcage is the only thing stopping him from sinking into despair, and he can’t-

If only he was a healer, he’d do anything-

Lora shakes, and her breaths shake, and she bleeds and bleeds and still she talks to him. “Don’t worry…” and Jin wants to sob.

It’s not fair, she survived Torna, survived everything, and now _this_ is going to end it all?!

“For us humans… being forgotten is a fate worse than death…” and she talks, voice getting quieter, face getting more pained, and still she tries to be so gentle for him, and Jin’s holding back tears as he chokes out,

“I’m sorry.”

_I failed you, I love you, please-_

“No, Jin,” Lora breathes. “Don’t… be…”

Lora is dying.

He’ll die with her, die with Lora. Her version of him, dying with her, while Jin the Blade returns to his Core crystal. Die, reset, restart.

_No!_

No. He can’t go back to his Core, because who will pick it up next? The army who killed Lora?

Disgust fills him, so sharp it’s violent, it’s almost rage. 

He will _not_.

He could… shatter his own Core? He’s only got a fleeting moment left before Lora will draw her last breath, and he can feel himself turning to ether, turning to icy mist, the Core _burning_ in his forehead – and he draws his sword one last time.

“Jin…?” it’s so quiet it’s barely a sound.

“We’ll go together,” whispers Jin. Raises his sword, and stabs it up-

 

 

 

There is nowhere he can go.

He runs from the Praetorium, pretends to be a human when he’s among humans, pretends to be a Blade if he’s already slipped up. He smiles, and flirts, and play-acts, and pretends it’s a game, it’s theatre, _and_ _when can I just go home?_ He’ll never fit in among humans again, never! Because sooner or later somebody _always notices_.

His anger is actual fucking dark cloud! People can point him out and say with confidence, “what a fucking _freak_ ”.

It’s pretty rich how the fucks who _did this to him_ are hailed as saints while he’s the monster.

But humans, they’re so comfortable in the belief that they’re the best. The masters. They can do no wrong, it’s the Flesh Eaters, the half-Blade freaks, the poor ones and children and refugees who’re to blame. Your fault for daring to exist! And Mikhail is so tired. And he is so angry. And he is alone.

So he keeps running from place to place, like that’s going to get him closer to some kind of end.

He can’t settle down. He can’t keep running forever. But someday, some way, it’ll end. And honestly? Really, actually, honestly? At this point he’d almost be content to just take up engineering, drinking, and hopefully die someday. Maybe the Core will fall out of his chest when he dies, now wouldn’t that be sweet?

 

 

 

His sister is all he has left. And Patroka doesn’t want even that, but she’s stronger than him, isn’t she? She’ll spit in the faces of their executioners, rather die with nothing and nobody at all than cling to Akhos. Heh. Akhos gets it, too. In a play he’d be the servant, the younger brother, the one who dies and it’s just background noise. Oh, _he’d_ write himself as a _king_ (but in the end he’d still _die_ , and his followers would not even wait for his body to return to the Ether before ripping the crown off his head)

He’ll die. He’ll die as a Flesh Eater, he’ll die as a monster, and he’ll die once and for all and never be reborn because sinners like him don’t get a second chance.

And if he had one-

If he had a second chance, he would give it to Patroka. And she would probably refuse it, but he’d still give it. So for her sake, he hopes that somebody will come. That _anything, anybody_ will save them.

But nobody comes for them.

 

 

 

After it all, when he’s done. When it’s been over for many years. When he’s just a shadow of the power he had-

It feels very pointless.

He could fade from legend entirely, disguise himself as a human so well that nobody would know the difference. But what would he do with that anonymity? And what would he have done with that infamy?

Malos doesn’t really know. Doesn’t even particularly care, about – most of anything, really. So he just… wanders.

There’s more languages to learn, so he learns them. He likes how they’re both different and similar and how sometimes the accent is everything, and how he can use that to make people believe he’s from Gormott, or Uraya. After that he starts to read more, anything he can find, history and newspapers and magazines…

There’s no mention of Mythra. She’s gone.

-he misses the fighting, a bit. So he joins a mercenary group, doesn’t even have to pretend to be a plain ol’ human since his shoulder protests at any quick or forceful movements and he can’t actually summon his own goddamn Monado to him. He uses borrowed weapons instead, always likes the feel of swinging a broadsword. It’s what he was _made_ to do. Maybe what _side_ he fought for never mattered, just _that_ he fought. Blades fight, and Aegises ruin.

He starts to find it funny how nobody recognises him as the Aegis of Destruction, so he starts getting even shadier. Soon he’ll be monologuing in alleyways to hapless strangers, ha. (now that would’ve been fun)

As the years pass though, he starts to get bored. There’s nobody he can mess with properly. There’s nobody he can even… talk to. Things start to feel rather pointless again, and the constant fucking pain in his Core is getting more and more insufferable.

 _Where is it_? That purpose he’s supposed to find? Why is he here?

Alrest is dying a slow death and Malos is the tragedy’s endlessly unimpressed spectator, and honestly, how can’t the humans _see it_? They’re all so fucking dumb. This is why he went to war the first time- except it _isn’t_. He barely even remembers why he went to war the first time. Maybe it was his Driver pointing at an army and saying _go_ , and Malos saying _sure why not_.

Maybe there never was a reason. Maybe the Architect is just an old nutcase.

Maybe _Malos_ is just an old nutcase.

He feels like he’s lost something, like he missed something a long time ago and just _now_ realised it’s too late to retrieve it. But he hasn’t even the faintest fucking clue _what_ that lost something might have been.

 


End file.
